Why Are Women Living Longer Than Men

Everywhere in the world women live longer than men - but this was not always the case. The available data from rich countries shows that women didn't live longer than men in the 19th century. What's the reason women live longer than men? And why is this difference growing as time passes? There isn't much evidence and we're only able to provide limited answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this isn't because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. For example, there is evidence that in rich countries the female advantage increased in part because infectious diseases used to affect women disproportionately a century ago, so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden from infectious diseases, especially for survivors, ended up raising women's longevity disproportionately.

Everywhere in the world women tend to live longer than men
The first chart below shows life expectancy at birth for ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور men and women. We can see that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia, women live for ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women's life expectancies at the birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used be very modest however it increased dramatically during the last century.

You can check if these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.